This was inspiring to see! I went to the St. Vincent's Dig 'n Save and picked up all the little pieces in the toy bins. Under $4.00 for half a reusable bag of objects PERFECT for this. Doing one now using the sillhouette of Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony.

I started out using the hot glue gun because I couldn't find any Elmer's.

Has there ever been an issue with pieces chipping or falling off the finished piece?

A piece fell off during shipping once that I know of, but easily fixed. And since it's not really handled much after creation I've never had a problem with anything else falling off - it just hangs on my wall. If you want to try a stronger glue I'd go for some E6000. Hot glue might actually have more issues of things falling off than either Elmer's or E6000 since it doesn't really bond with the material you're gluing like the others do.

That looks great! I saw the figures within a couple of seconds - it might be that the contrast between the white canvas and the luster color isn't so great as to make it instantly obvious but I think it's awesome!